Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) By: Marissa Meyer

Scarlet

Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) By: Marissa Meyer

Plot:

Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison–even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother or the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.

Review:

After Cinder’s ending I didn’t expect Scarlet to start off with an entirely new character. It took me a little bit to get into it because of that. However, once I did I ended up liking Scarlet more than Cinder.

The world keeps on growing in this series with Scarlet taking place in France. It’s incredibly interesting to see the tech and how wide reaching the fear and prejudice is for Lunars. The Queen makes a great villain and you discover more about her in this book.

Honestly, my only complaint is that while a lot happened I’m impatient for a final resolution. It took Cinder the entire book to basically man up and even then she was kicking and screaming the entire time.

I had to force myself not to buy the next book in the series, only because at this point I’ve checked them all out from the library so it doesn’t make sense to just randomly own the third book in a series. Thank goodness I was able to pick it up fairly quickly. Very excited to see what Meyer does next.

4.5/5

Shield of Winter (Psy-Changeling #13) By: Nalini Singh

shield of winter

Shield of Winter (Psy-Changeling #13) By: Nalini Singh

Plot:

Assassin. Soldier. Arrow. That is who Vasic is, who he will always be. His soul drenched in blood, his conscience heavy with the weight of all he’s done, he exists in the shadows, far from the hope his people can almost touch—if only they do not first drown in the murderous insanity of a lethal contagion. To stop the wave of death, Vasic must complete the simplest and most difficult mission of his life.

For if the Psy race is to survive, the empaths must wake…

Having rebuilt her life after medical “treatment” that violated her mind and sought to stifle her abilities, Ivy should have run from the black-clad Arrow with eyes of winter frost. But Ivy Jane has never done what she should. Now, she’ll fight for her people, and for this Arrow who stands as her living shield, yet believes he is beyond redemption. But as the world turns to screaming crimson, even Ivy’s fierce will may not be enough to save Vasic from the cold darkness…

Review:

Did I stay up until two o’clock in the morning and thus the next morning was incredibly cranky while reading this book? Yes. Yes I did.

Vasic was nowhere near as “evil” as Kaleb from the last book, there wasn’t all the hands at her neck parts so I liked it a lot of better. I know that technically speaking Kaleb isn’t evil but when all that’s keeping him from killing an entire race is the love of his woman he’s kind of evil in my book.

Vasic and Ivy were great characters and I loved that we finally got an answer to the Psy issues that have been going on in the world. Honestly the series could end at this point because the big issues are taken care of, at least all the ones I remember. However, I’m still curious to see what happens because the world created is fun and exciting.

4.5/5

Inside Out (2015)

inside-out

Inside Out (2015)

Director:

Pete Doctor

Ronnie Del Carmen

Starring:

Amy Poehler

Bill Hader

Lewis Black

Plot:

After young Riley is uprooted from her Midwest life and moved to San Francisco, her emotions – Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness – conflict on how best to navigate a new city, house, and school.

Review:

Wow that movie was darker than I expected it to be. I don’t consider that a negative it’s just an observation. I really don’t think most children would have picked up on it, though. It was more for the adults.

I found myself crying throughout the whole thing and really wished my daughter was awake so that I could hug her. I’m apparently hormonal right now lol

It was a cute movie, I thought the concept was cool, but I don’t think I need to own it. Definitely watch it if you haven’t, but at your own leisure.

4/5

My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict’s Attempt to Discover If Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto By: Jen Lancaster

My-Fair-Lazy-Jen-Lancaster

My Fair Lazy: One Reality Television Addict’s Attempt to Discover If Not Being a Dumb Ass Is the New Black, or a Culture-Up Manifesto By: Jen Lancaster

Synopsis:

Readers have followed Jen Lancaster through job loss, sucky city living, weight loss attempts, and 1980s nostalgia. Now Jen chronicles her efforts to achieve cultural enlightenment, with some hilarious missteps and genuine moments of inspiration along the way. And she does so by any means necessary: reading canonical literature, viewing classic films, attending the opera, researching artisan cheeses, and even enrolling in etiquette classes to improve her social graces. In Jen’s corner is a crack team of experts, including Page Six socialites, gourmet chefs, an opera aficionado, and a master sommelier. She may discover that well-regarded, high-priced stinky cheese tastes exactly as bad as it smells, and that her love for Kraft American Singles is forever. But one thing’s for certain: Eliza Doolittle’s got nothing on Jen Lancaster-and failure is an option.

Review:

It took me a while to get into My Fair Lazy, I read The Tao of Marth fairly recently so it was difficult to get back into reading another memoir by the same person, but once I did I really enjoyed it. I got to see how much Lancaster has changed since she first started writing. This book was published in 2010 but feels like it’s older, possibly because she hadn’t yet moved to the big house in the suburbs.

Lancaster makes me want to be a better person. Not like give to charity or volunteer, but make myself better by expanding my knowledge and trying new things. While reading this I made a mental note to really tackle my non-fiction backlog and learn something new, maybe even become an expert in something.

Recently I found an old document with goals written four years ago. I felt smug when I opened it because surely I’d get to cross something off and—I didn’t. I felt deflated and couldn’t help asking what was I doing with my life? The things on the list weren’t all difficult and were things I still want to do, so why am I not doing them?

Anyway, I really enjoyed My Fair Lazy and I could relate more to his Jen than the one from Tao of Martha. The only other memoir by Lancaster I have yet to read is Jeneration X and for obvious reasons I’m not in a rush to read it.

4/5

Armada By: Ernest Cline

Armada

Armada By: Ernest Cline

Plot:

Zack Lightman has spent his life dreaming. Dreaming that the real world could be a little more like the countless science-fiction books, movies, and videogames he’s spent his life consuming. Dreaming that one day, some fantastic, world-altering event will shatter the monotony of his humdrum existence and whisk him off on some grand space-faring adventure.

But hey, there’s nothing wrong with a little escapism, right? After all, Zack tells himself, he knows the difference between fantasy and reality. He knows that here in the real world, aimless teenage gamers with anger issues don’t get chosen to save the universe.

And then he sees the flying saucer.

Even stranger, the alien ship he’s staring at is straight out of the videogame he plays every night, a hugely popular online flight simulator called Armada—in which gamers just happen to be protecting the earth from alien invaders.

No, Zack hasn’t lost his mind. As impossible as it seems, what he’s seeing is all too real. And his skills—as well as those of millions of gamers across the world—are going to be needed to save the earth from what’s about to befall it.

It’s Zack’s chance, at last, to play the hero. But even through the terror and exhilaration, he can’t help thinking back to all those science-fiction stories he grew up with, and wondering: Doesn’t something about this scenario seem a little…familiar?
Review:

This book was ridiculous, right now I’m not sure if it was a good or bad ridiculous, though.

Even though the book started with Zack seeing an alien ship it seemed to take forever for anything to actually happen. There was a lot of explaining about the fact that his dad was dead and how that had impacted his entire life and Cline walked you through Zack’s levels of obsession over his father.

*Spoilers*

A lot of very farfetched things happened in the book, which is fine, sometimes that’s fun, but I think some things went too far overboard. The aliens in this book acted like video game aliens, which Zack realized but no one else seemed to pick up on. Well a couple other people but they hadn’t done anything about it which considering the whole world was in the balance seemed very irresponsible and stupid.

The ending was filled with needless death and while I was crying at the loss I was also pissed off. A lot of people made some very stupid decisions considering they had literally decades to think up solutions. Are we really that stupid as a species?

I think the icing on the cake of over the top ridiculous was when Zack’s mom gets pregnant after one bout of sex with her long dead husband. Seriously? That was unnecessary and more than a bit stupid.

The way the book ended it could very well lead to more books and the creation of a series but that’s exactly how Ready Player One ended and so far we’ve got nothing. The last thing I read was that Cline wanted to write something similar to Catcher in the Rye, but that could have been a joke. God I hope it was. Other places are saying he’s working on a sequel to RP1 so we’ll see what happens. He’s not a particularly fast writer so we have some time.

Anyway, I knew going in that this book wasn’t going to resonate with me like Ready Player One did, the plot just didn’t do it for me, but I loved RP1 so much that I wanted to like this one. All in all I felt like it was okay, but not something I have to own or would likely recommend to people. It’s an idea that’s been done before and I honestly don’t think Cline brought enough new to the table.

I look forward to more by Cline, but I’m keeping my excitement in check for now.

3/5